Should Your Business Pay to Play on Social Media? You Bet!

Should Your Business Pay to Play on Social Media? You Bet!

Since there is no argument that now is the age of content marketing, the question then turns into how do we get our content noticed among the ocean of competing voices out there?
So what's the current best practice for getting your voice heard above the others vying for attention?
One way people are getting their content viewed and shared is through the use of something called paid social promotion. You might not have come across this before, so let's define it and see just what it can do for us.

Exactly what is paid social promotion?

Paid social promotion is the strategy of running social media ads to content you would like traffic to or have otherwise noticed. The advent of social networks like Facebook and others has made it quite simple to generate an incredibly wider reach than you might be capable of yourself, nearly instantly, and for a very modest investment. In fact, often times these ads pay for themselves several times over, often before the bill comes due!

Which social platforms do I need to use?

It seems there are new ad platforms springing up every day, but for our purposes we'll stick to a handful you may already have head of.

Facebook - Facebook's ad platform is by far your best option right now. The ability it offers to precisely target an audience, combined with the social and viral aspects of Facebook itself make this almost a no-brainer. It is very easy to use, and extremely affordable.
Twitter - Promoted Tweets work well for this sort of promotion, and you are able to target prospects by keyword and who they follow.
LinkedIn - Sponsored Updates from the LinkedIn platform are extremely powerful, and especially useful if you are a B2B.
Reddit - Reddit is loaded with rabid users, and using the niche ad option on their ad platform is the best choice here. This can send an avalanche of traffic in a short time!

7 Tips for Better Conversions and More Sales

7 Tips for Better Conversions and More Sales

Everyone would love better conversions. It's a necessity to remain in business, so the science of conversion optimization is taking on greater importance.
The littlest change can make a sizeable difference when it comes to conversions, so it would follow there are a number of elements we should be looking at.
For now though we will look at 7 tips for improving conversions to get you started down the road to more profits!

7 Smart tips for better conversion optimization

1. Don't give a lot of options - One of the most sure-fire ways to get people to abandon a cart or web form is to ask for excessive information. In the same way, even showing too many choices can freeze potential customers into inaction, and so lose the sale.
2. Test it all - Test every element of sales pages, as this is where you make your money. One single word misplaced can be the difference between a sale or nothing. Strive to use A/B tests, as they are less burdensome to run and can give you quick results.
3. Know your colors - Colors evoke emotions, and if yours are creating a message in opposition to your sales message, you have a problem. Be sure you understand the science of colors as they apply to sales.
4. Visual content is huge - Since it's been demonstrated that the brain processes visual media 60,000 times faster than textual data, it's important to understand that you need not only to have imagery in the form of videos and pictures, you also need the right ones. Test this carefully.
5. Take care with your calls to action - Don't use the stock buttons everyone else does. Be sure you test the shape, wording, placement and colors of your calls to action and buy buttons.
6. Remove navigation - Take away navigation to anything other than the action desired on pages where you hope to make a conversion. Your page should have one purpose, and one purpose only. Don't offer them a chance to be distracted by anything other than the task at hand!
7. Don't go with your gut - Trust the data, not your emotions. Many is the time marketers have fallen in love with text or visuals that turned out to be totally wrong. Let your testing tell you what works!

Building Your Brand Online for the Long Term

Building Your Brand Online for the Long Term

If you have an offline business and wish to take a version online, or simply want to begin a business online, you need to have an understanding of what exactly it takes to build your brand online.
In order to take your brand online you need to do some basic steps to get going.
Let's check out four steps to get you going with building your brand online.
Four easy steps to take your brand online
Here are some of the nuts and bolts you need to secure in order to successfully take your brand online.
Identify your audience and competition - For best results online, you'll need to have a very good idea who your ideal customers are, and in addition to that, who is also after their attention, or in other words, your competition. Knowing this information going in is very important.
Secure your Web properties - Purchasing a domain name for your brand that accurately reflects your business is essential. Have a website built. Don't choose a free site you see advertised, as this will severely limit your alternatives and you won't really own anything. Bite the bullet, secure web hosting, and get a site built that you can be happy with for a while.
Establish Social Media accounts - Social media is very important these days, because it can have a positive effect on traffic, authority, search ranks and a lot more. Deciding which social sites to make use of is up to you, but most likely you'll be using Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and YouTube. Create a presence on these sites and be sure to have consistency in your contact information across these as well as your website. Having this last element wrong could really cause search engine problems so pay attention to it!
Create content and engage - Begin posting and publishing across your new Web properties. This can seem tedious and unfruitful at first, but it's an important step. Cross promote from one to the other. For instance, announce a new blog post on Facebook or Twitter, etc. Once you start to have people comment and engage with you, you are ready to take your brand to the next level, that of establishing authority in your space, a topic for another article!

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Want More Traffic? Craft Better Content

See How to Craft Content that Brings you Lots of Traffic 

You might have believed that you had content marketing covered when you've managed to post more often than once a week to your site or blog. The truth is, if you want it to actually bring the awesome results you're always hearing about, it's a bit more involved than just that.
The way to have this happen for you is easier than you might think, but requires a little outside the box thinking. In particular, you need to understand how to involve several different types of content into the mix, and use them together.
Let's see 7 ways you can create content that can attract more traffic, and not just one time!

7 Types of content that can bring loads of traffic to your site

1. Infographics - We are a visual Web, and infographics have grown to be one of the most popular ways to cram a lot of content into an interesting format. Even better, they are easily sharable, and can send tons of visitors to your site.
2. Make a case study - If you have had great results with a particular method or tactic, that could be just the ticket for creating an informative case study. Very hot right now!
3. Create a tutorial - Solving a problem for your audience with a step by step solution is a sure way to get a lot of traffic for a very long time.
4. Videos - People watch tons of video every month, and if you can create a smart, well-done explainer video for your site and market it wisely, you will have created a traffic stream that will shock you!
5. Record Podcasts - When people can't view your videos online, or if they are stuck with only their smartphone, they love to listen to podcasts. Easy to produce and distribute, they drive more traffic than you might think!
6. Interviews - Set up interviews with authority figures in your market and see your content get shared all over the internet.
7. Epic posts - Creating long form content that really tackles a subject thoroughly is an excellent way to have that content shared and get a lot of traffic. While this is not something you can likely do every day, it can also help establish your authority.

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Wanna Know What's Happening with Local Search Ranking Factors? Here You Go!

Wanna Know What's Happening with Local Search Ranking Factors? Here You Go!

It's that time of year again, when the SEO experts at Moz publish what has become the most authoritative report on the state of local search ranking factors for each year. The most up-to-date version came out in mid-October 2014, and reveals several interesting insights you'll want to know as you begin the new year. Moz surveys experts in the local search field and produces a report that details what they suspect Google is using to rank local pages.
Sometimes it can be difficult to wade through the SEO-speak, so in a nutshell, here are our takeaways from the latest report, issued October 13, 2014.

Top local search ranking factors 2014

• User Behavior on the site - What your users does once they arrive on your site appears to have a big influence in your ranking. Things like clickthroughs, getting directions, interactions with forms, etc. are receiving far greater attention from the algorithm.
• Proximity to the searcher - Google's algorithm is becoming more adept at GEOI locating your user, and sending them to appropriate results. They are even being able to detect desktop locations more effectively, a big change form even last year.
• Your domain's authority - This is rising fast. If you are a brand and are engaged in building authority and presence in the search engines, more and more Google is deciphering this and helping your pages to rank in front of the more spammy results.
• Citations still work - Citations are still a big part of the plan, and even unlinked citations from an authority site are appearing to be very useful and advantageous. Still strive to acquire more and better citations as part of ranking well locally.
• Your on-page SEO is the largest single factor - Still the largest single factor in ranking well locally is your on-page SEO. Make sure your NAP data, title keywords, GEO locators, and local engagement are up to speed to help you get great results in local rankings.

I would certainly encourage you to read the full report, which can be accessed through this page.

Easy Plan to Keep Up with Your Social Media

Easy Plan to Keep Up with Your Social Media

Okay, so you've got a couple social media accounts, and perhaps have even posted to them once or twice. So where is this surge of traffic and benefit you were supposed to reap? The truth is that if you're not making regular posts and sharing content, in addition to engaging with your followers you most likely won't make much of an impact.
Most businesses really don't have a plan with respect to social media maintenance. It seems an insurmountable task to maintain, especially if you're attempting to maintain several different platforms.
Let's take a look at 5 tips for making your social media less of a drag and more of a revenue and lead generating channel.

5 Tips for social media maintenance

1. Give consideration to your platforms - Unless you have a smart and large staff, you really won't be able to handle more than a few social media platforms simultaneously. Take a hard look at where your customers are most likely found, and start there. Make sure you are choosing at least a few of the major ones: Facebook, YouTube, Twitter and LinkedIn.
2. Schedule your postings - Having a calendar where you can see and schedule your postings can help in several ways. Not only will you feel less under the gun to come up with something wonderful right away, you'll be able to craft social campaigns and incorporate tools into your mix.
3. Cross promote - Use your various social channels to send traffic to each other. For instance, announce your blog posts and videos on Facebook and Twitter. Use LinkedIn in a similar fashion. Sending traffic to your YouTube videos can help in many ways.
4. Make sure you repurpose your content - Utilizing your content in various ways on your social media platforms only makes good sense. A long post can make a number of good snippets, meant to lead readers back to the site where they can read the entire version. You get the idea…
5. Share great content - Strive to share great content you find from other sources on the Web that your readers will enjoy. This is a great strategy to improve your own authority. Not only will this help you in the content creation process, but your readers will thank you!

Which Landing Pages Elements to Test and Why

Which Landing Pages Elements to Test and Why

We know we will need to test our various landing pages for numerous things. The problem with that is most of us haven't yet learned not only what we need to test for, but also how to do it.
Testing your landing pages is by far the best way to improve conversion, and generate more leads and revenue. The cold hard fact is that if you fail to embrace this practice, you are putting your business in a very rocky position, as this means you are essentially rolling the dice with each and every attempt. Wouldn't it be smarter to create your own intelligence to give you the best results? In the hopes you said yes, here are a few items you'll definitely want to look at testing.
Let's take a peek at several of the items that should be tested on your landing pages.

What you should test on your landing pages

Your headlines - Crafting the perfect message in your landing page headlines is critical to their success. It can often be a matter of only a word or two, so test carefully.

Specific colors and elements - Color in particular can play a big role in conversions, and there is a whole science of color associated with consumer behavior. This, as well as other design elements need to be tested for the most effective combinations for your landing pages.

Visual elements - This means mainly videos and imagery. Frequently a video that is the wrong style or an image that doesn't convey what you want can send traffic running from your page.

Your sales copy - One of the more difficult elements to test, it is without a doubt one of the most important. Setting just the right message, at the proper length and tone is essential for success. This requires testing!

Prices - Unsure about the best price at which to offer your items? There is no better way to determine this than through testing. Your consumers will let you know in no uncertain terms, which price converts better.

Terms and conditions - Often you may wish to test a condition, guarantee or other terms. Critical stumbling blocks can be revelaed easily at this stage.

Test your call to action - Both the buttons themselves and text located on them should be tested. You'll be surprised just how big a difference this can make!

Why You Should Use Paid Search with Organic SEO

Why You Should Use Paid Search with Organic SEO

If you've ever seen the Broadway musical "Oklahoma", you might recall a song entitled "The Farmer and the Cowman Should Be Friends." This can also be said for organic SEO and paid search, as the same regions of the page that are being sought after by each of these can in fact work even better together!
For too long these strategies have been thought of as either/or, but the sharp marketer knows how to make this strategy work well for them. The number of ways in which SEO and PPC can help each other are many, and you should know this in order to make the best use of your marketing dollars.

Let's take a look at 5 reasons to combine PPC and Organic SEO

Get as much page one real estate as possible! - Obviously, having as many listings as you can on page one is the goal, and this can only help you dominate the traffic that this pages serves if your site is showing up all over the page. Not only that, this helps increase your brand authority.

Build brand exposure - The more times people come and see your brand the better for you. Moreover, your message is more likely to stay consistent and within your control if you are managing your entries on the paid along with the organic side of things.

A net gain in total traffic - Many don't take this approach as they feel it could cost them organic "free" traffic. Testing is showing however that in most every case there is a net gain in traffic, as the overall presence on the page results in more clicks. Not only that, your PPC costs will obviously go down, as many will be clicking the organic results!

Better conversion rates - One astonishing benefit to this is that companies who are employing this approach are discovering their conversions rates soaring by as much as 200%. Evidently more clicks plus more authority equals better conversions. Who knew!

Better keyword performance - The combination of data form both paid and organic sources can lead to a goldmine of keyword intelligence, helping you in both campaigns.

How to Optimize Images for Your Web Pages

How to Optimize Images for Your Web Pages

When was the last time you thought about optimizing your web images? That's what I thought. However, flippancy aside, leaving them un-optimized can significantly hurt your site in a number of ways.
It can have a definite impact on your site's SEO performance, in addition to the benefits that optimized images can bring your way.
Let's examine 5 quick tips for making sure your images are enhancing your site, and not detracting from it!

5 Practical tips for optimizing your web page images

Keep your image files smallish - This is among the easiest and best favors you can do for your page. Large image files can take ages to load on the page, causing annoyance, abandonment, and lost sales. Amazon calculated that every second lost while their images load costs them $1.6 billion per year!
Use keywords in your image filenames - This is an easy one to complete, yet many do not think of it. Not only is this a major on-page SEO item, it can help Google figure out where and for what keyword to rank your pages. Enough said?
Optimize your ALT tags - Taking care to optimize your image ALT tags, also known as ALT text, is another "make sure you do" item. This can be the difference in whether or not your images even show up in Google images or for that matter search, and is also an easy fix. Don't neglect this one.
Employ JPEGs if at all possible - There are several different types of image types out there, but for the most part, JPEGs have always been and continue to be the de-facto image type used on the Web. They are easily compressed, and have a small footprint, helping them to load quickly. If you can't use a JEPG, then opt for a PNG files next, and GIFs last.
Employ a Google Image Sitemap - Located in Google Webmaster Tools, you can deploy an Image Sitemap which will help Google find, index and otherwise categorize your imagery, thus enhancing your chances of having those images seen in Google images and search. A handy and Google-friendly way to optimize!